The Russian Program at De Anza College provides a unique opportunity to receive formal education in Russian language and culture. De Anza College is the only school in the whole Bay Area that offers Russian studies on regular basis. It was founded five years ago to meet the needs of motivated language learners ranging from college students to business people. Some of them intend to fulfill GE requirements or acquire UC transfer credits; some of them, coming from families with Russian or mixed heritage, have personal interests; some require it for business purposes only; and some go to De Anza only to take Russian.As of mid January 2013, it is planned to close the Russian language program for good due to the budget cuts. In addition, Russian is considered to be a small program because it solely consists of a single language class per quarter. Furthermore, De Anza will suffer a significant enrollment decrease and lose genuinely interested students. The college will also shrink its diverse curriculum by axing this well sought out program.For the last five years, this program has been very successful, with sufficient class enrollment each quarter and even an ongoing waiting list, with enough students for another class section. Since Russian is the fifth most spoken language in the world, it remains vital to our contemporary society, and particularly in Silicon Valley abundant with Russian-speaking professionals who have established business relations with Russia. Elimination of the Russian program will have devastating effects on the whole community, business world, and especially our younger generations who have just received a chance to be exposed to Russian language and culture in a class setting.With this petition, we urge the De Anza College Administration to reconsider its decision and rather save the existing Russian courses. Being united as one community, we support our cause. By signing this petition, we all contribute immensely to preserving the only Russian language program in the Bay Area.